


Flowers Bloom Everlasting in the Garden of Youth

by vivacious_turpitude



Category: The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Genre: Be The Fanfiction You Want To See In The World (tm), ESPECIALLY NOT ANYTHING WITH MORE THAN LIKE CHEEK KISSING, F/M, sooooo, there's not enough Rudy/Liesel in this fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-11 06:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7032751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivacious_turpitude/pseuds/vivacious_turpitude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liesel doesn't love Rudy, because love is bad for your health.<br/>And Rudy doesn't remember when he started loving Liesel for real, only that now he can't stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When did he start loving Liesel?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't read The Book Thief in a while, so tell me if there are any obvious literary errors please. Enjoy.

At first it seemed like nothing much. The soft drag of eyes over a retreating back. The long line of the throat when she laughed. That little glint of malice in her eyes that could soften to kindness for those lucky enough. Rudy never knew quite when he had stopped joking about Liesel and started meaning it, but somewhere between the childhood taunting and the silent brush of her hand over his mouth as they fled the orchard, pockets stuffed with apples, it had happened. 

He didn’t know how to convey it to her. How to explain that he wasn’t trying to trick her so he could humiliate her. It was so hard to walk that line, when any show of affection was thrown back in his face. He held close to himself that small nuggets of love she had shown him. 

That afternoon they had walked beside the creek and she had woven flowers into his hair and then laughed at him for it. She said cruel things, but her eyes were soft and kind and her tone spoke to shared jokes. She seemed to be laughing at the world, not him. It was beautiful. She was beautiful. When the day was over, when she had splashed him with cold river water and dragged mud through his blond hair and laughed at the sun’s redness caught over the bridge of his nose, when all that was done, she walked beside him. Their shoulders bumped lightly. Their hands brushed against one another. And when she linked her cool-fingered hand in his and steadfastly refused to look him in the eyes, he said nothing. He did not break the small peace they had built in late-afternoon sun.

Maybe it had been then.

Or perhaps it had been the euphoria when they stole. The bright flare in the stomach, the giggles coughed out of a broken grin, the warmth in Rudy’s chest when he knew he could eat tonight, his brothers and sisters could eat tonight. Perhaps when Liesel had clutched him close, her eyes sharp and watchful over his head as she scanned for disturbances and noises. She protected him and held him like an extension of herself and he began to feel that he was.

It may have been her carelessness that endeared him. Her scraped knees and fist-fights and loose way of swinging her hips when she walked. The way she didn’t believe in the rules, like they were optional and she had chosen to opt out. She was never completely ruthless with her body— she seemed to know it was a tool and that she needed keep it useful for herself— but she never seemed fully aware of it either.

Rudy could remember the day she came into the schoolroom with the beginnings of breasts on her chest and a shirt worn too tight over them because she didn’t seem to know they were there. He remembered the way everyone had averted their eyes because Liesel was Scary and they didn’t know what she might do it they were caught staring. He remembered a few days later when he mentioned her new green smock, and she had turned red and hit him. He had only connected the incident to her budding chest later, as he washed himself for dinner. His face flared as red as hers had. For the first time he felt a clutch in his gut. At the time, he dismissed it as a hunger pang. Later, he knew better.

She had never seen it, had dismissed her Mama’s warnings about strange men and untrustworthy boys. She had laughed about her Mama’s warning with him after school one day. She knew about being careful,about not fighting boys when she couldn’t win, about not going into men’s homes when you were alone. 

Rudy had looked to the side and not met her eyes as she laughed about such foolishness. He lived in a small house. He had many siblings. He knew how they had come to be. The house was small, too small for secrets or privacy. He had seen his parents, heard them. He knew what a man and a woman could do together. 

He knew what her Mama cautioned about. He felt a sick lurch in his stomach that someone might do such a thing with Liesel. That Liesel might tangle herself up in someone, until they and she became a single beast, until she left Rudy alone. 

She might not know it, but she had grown into the body of a woman. She was all round curves and jutting hips and wiry frame that made all the more clear the soft spots left on her. If she had stirred him, he knew, she had probably stirred others. But she still did not seem to know her effect on any of them.

The first night he had awoken hard under his sheets after dreaming of her, he had bit his lip until it bled before taking himself in hand and finishing the exercise. He had gouged his nails into his palms when he saw her that morning, shards of guilt and pleasure tearing him open. Maybe that is when he knew he loved her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first ever fanfic, so being nice would be, well, nice.  
> This is chapter 1, there will be another from Liesel's perspective.  
> It will get smuttier (but not too smutty, considering they are both young).  
> Thank you for reading!
> 
>  
> 
> p.s. PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT ANY GRAMMATICAL ERRORS. I WILL VERY VERY APPRECIATE IT. THANKS.


	2. She doesn't love him. She does NOT love Rudy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little less sweet, a little more... well.  
> I mean, it's Liesel, so it's not like she's the queen of soft and sweet really.  
> Enjoy!

Stupid Rudy with his stupid soft hair and his stupid warm hands and his stupid,  _ stupid _ kindness. 

Stupid Rudy with his eyes like the creek melting after winter and his calloused working hands that could hold so tight and his pale skin covered in sun-freckles.

Stupid Rudy who shone like an untouchable beacon when he ran and grinned sunlight from inside his eyes and looked at Liesel like he was giving her something fragile from inside his chest when she wasn’t looking back at him.

Stupid Rudy whose laugh brayed like a donkey and whose knees were too knobbly and who refused to back down even when he really, really should. Stupid Rudy who somehow made all those things sweet, when they should have been annoying. 

Stupid Rudy who cared about her. Who cared for her. 

_ Stupid _ Rudy.

 

_ Didn’t he know that caring about things breaks them? Didn’t he know that loving things kills them? Didn’t he understand that she was nothing but pain for him? _

 

Liesel didn’t do that anymore. Didn’t love people, didn’t care about them. Not since her mother and her baby brother and that cold graveyard. This is what she told herself. She said it to herself, over and over again. She traced it with her toe in nonsense shapes in the muddy earth. She whispered it into the floorboards beside her bed at night. She sang it under her breath while she delivered laundry. 

_ Somewhere along the way she forgot what it meant. _

 

Liesel couldn’t read much at first, but when she began, she read everything she could find. This meant mostly books people were discarding or actively trying to get rid of, as the case was, because of the newer stricter rules. 

Now, the Nazis were banning books for crimes including, but not limited to: the crime of being written by foreigners, the crime of being written by undesirable Germans— Freud, Einstein, the crime of advocating peace, the crime of discussing non-propagandically the recent past of Germany— that is, the Weimar Republic, and more. But they also banned books for  _ other _ reasons. As Liesel quickly found out.

She’d even heard of the book, it had been banned long before the Nazis had cause to burn away so much knowledge.  _ Lady Chatterleys Liebhaber _ . She took care to hide it once she’d found it, shoved beside the others at the fire. The  _ Lady _ had sat between two books, shoved in as if in hopes no one would notice the offending literature in the tide of not-as offending literature. It was obvious even from the cover that this was a naughty book, the kind Mama would hit her for even mentioning. A woman sat half-clothed on the cover, her back and bottom not-quite-wrapped in some silk, glancing over her bare shoulder with coquettish smile. 

Liesel, inexplicably, was intrigued. 

Liesel, inexplicably, carried the book home with her and tucked it away in the basement. 

Liesel, inexplicably, found herself sneaking back to her hiding spot and cracking the book open to read.

Liesel, inexplicably, found herself doing this again and again.

She found herself baffled by the descriptions of The Act within. It was nothing like Mama had told her, nothing like the leering adolescent boys had ever hinted at. They had spoken to an animal experience— quick, brutal, painful— another method of degradation for those who chose to use it. Mama had spoken to the same, only with the caveat that it was different for men and they liked it for some reason. When Liesel had asked her what exactly she meant by that, and why would it be so?, she got a slap for her troubles.

But  _ Lady _ ?  _ Lady _ spoke of an act entirely different from the ripping, tearing, shredding painful exercise in futility others seemed to suggest. 

_ Lady _ spoke to soft caresses and a sense of being filled that had made little sense to Liesel until she had rubbed her thighs together and felt an uncomfortable emptiness below her stomach that had nothing to do with food. 

_ Lady _ had spoken of a wet warmth that meant nothing to her until she had reached down to adjust her nightdress as she read by moonlight and found it stuck to her thighs by a tackiness not sweat. 

_ Lady _ had talked of curves, and curves she knew. She had seen the way men’s eyes lingered a second too long on her body and felt the valleys and mountains of her topography with her own two hands. The curvature of a woman’s hips and the architecture of her waist and the roundness of her breasts, all gently caressed, all sparking sensation like electrical fires running through the veins. Liesel had only to brush her peaked nipples against the soft material of her nightgown to find the truth in this— and to gasp and stiffen her back in a fiery pleasurepain of need.

The first night she woke gasping in pleasure not nightmare, she shook with a fear she had never considered. She wished she could not remember her dream— had she dreamed of faceless men touching her so sweetly, it would all have been so much easier. But her dream had only a single man who was not quite even that, whose face shone with familiar sunlight and sharp kindness, whose body was peppered in freckles, whose smile shone brighter than starlight and whose hair was lemon colored. She did not need to look down to see her nightgown nearly transparent with sweat. She did not need to see her breasts, perked and peaked and pressed against the fabric. She did not need to touch that place where her legs met. 

_ She did not need to touch that place where her legs met. But, oh, it felt so lovely when she did. _

She bit the inside of her arm to quiet her sharp cries and cover her hot breaths. She found herself almost sobbing with shaking exhales while she rubbed the palm of her hand at that spot that felt like the fireworks they sometimes set off at the rallies. As her body curled and unfurled in equal measure,  _ his  _ face swam before her eyes. 

_ He _ —no, she was too far gone to deny it even to herself—  _ Rudy _ looked at her with that look he got sometimes that her made feel so naked, so laid out for him, and she imagined his eyes darkening, his sweet red mouth smirking because he  _ knew _ , he  _ knew _ what she did, how she thought about him, he  _ knew  _ now and that look promised so many things, so much mischief, and she was his next mark, he was going to steal her next and———— and she fell, collapsed, pulsing and shaking, spots going off in front of her eyes. Her body clenching and shivering. 

_ Stupid Rudy. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO I ACTUALLY DID AN ASS-TON OF WORK RESEARCHING ABOUT THIS.  
> Fact: Lady Chatterley's Lover was both in publication and popular circulation as a dirty novel across Europe during WW1-WW2/Nazi era  
> Fact: There was no singular list of banned books by the Nazis-- just rules about propriety. They even banned medical texts that talked about sex! But most people succumbed to self-censorship  
> Fact: I actually read one of the sex scenes in Lady Chatterley's Lover, and my not-a-sex-scene is arguably more explicit. Lol.  
> Fact: I'm not done with these sexually and romantically frustrated children. They'll be another chapter coming.  
> Fact: COMMENTS AND KUDOS ARE MY LIFEBLOOD. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.


	3. A MiniChapter: Misunderstandings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm apparently incapable of writing fluff so. angst here we are.  
> this is a mini-chapter because i know i haven't updated since a decade and a half ago so i figured i'd give y'all what i have at least. even if it's not much.  
> these poor kiddos need to have their full character arc (Rudy realizing Liesel is a real person and not super pure, Liesel realizing Rudy is her crush and allowing herself to feel unashamedly) but this is mostly set-up. Sorry!

It was strangely difficult to look Rudy in the eyes after that. She knew he liked her, knew that he wanted to kiss her, the saukerl, but.

Was it guilt? That she had come apart with his name on her trembling lips, his eyes looking into her mind?  
  
Was it fear? That every time she looked at him, she saw something— someone— she wanted?

Was it disgust? That he might like the Liesel he knew, but what of the strange girl shuddering with her hands between her legs?

_(It wasn’t. It was the fact that she had stopped lying to herself, right before she had come. She had cast off her lie of not loving him, and discarded it carelessly on the dirty basement floor, and now she couldn’t find it again._   
_She couldn’t find the way she had once been able to look at him without feeling those sharp pains in her chest. She couldn’t find how to look at his shining face without imagining herself bathed in the glow. She couldn’t find the studied disinterest she had once been able to exude. She felt completely bare, naked for him to see. To say nothing of that part of her that wanted to be bare before him, wanted her nakedness to shine like an engraved invitation before his eyes.)_

Whatever the reason, she couldn’t bear talking to him, nor him talking to her.  
Suddenly, without any explanation, she found herself turning away from him. Found herself leaving him to go sit in her basement and wallow in shame. Found herself drifting away with never a word to him to what had happened.

She felt doubly ashamed for the hurt look in his eyes that flashed when she turned him friendship away. He covered it so swiftly with bravado, but she saw it each time she left him standing alone, adventure in his outstretched hand.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rudy didn’t know which was worse, that Liesel had stopped talking to him or the strange, frightened look in her eyes when ever he caught her staring. He didn’t know what he had done, how he could stop whatever it was.

He had asked his Mama, but she had been distracted and busy and sent him off saying only, “People change, Rudy. She probably changed. Have you put your little brothers to bed yet?” and that was the end of that conversation. It made little sense to Rudy, and seemed like the sort of thing adults say when they are thinking of themselves and their past while answering your questions. It didn’t seem to apply to his situation at all, but rather to every person in every situation since the beginning of time, and therefore seemed not particularly helpful to the specific issue at hand.

He had asked his Papa, but he had been tired and wry, saying only, “Women are strange creatures. You never can understand them, only love them, eh? Now, where has your Mama gotten off to...” and walking away. This made even less sense to Rudy, as Liesel had always made perfect sense to Rudy. She was strange, oh yes, but strange in a similar flavor to him. He understood her strange. Until now. He had understood and loved her, and thought that was how it was supposed to go. How could you love someone you didn’t understand? Of course all people are ultimately unknowable, but he understood Liesel’s core. Her fire, her anger, her sweetness that she tried to hide. But now there was some other element in the mix and her eyes had become stormy with it and he didn’t understand.

To Rudy’s eternal shame, the more Liesel snubbed him, the harder she was to chase from his dreams. He began to dream of kissing her and seeing her light up, so contrary to the stony face she wore around him now. He began to dream of touching her and having her gasp in his grasp. He began to dream of the face she would wear when she discovered pleasure for the first time. He dreamed of teaching her himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank y'all for reading. i've been super busy (changed schools, went to Switzerland, went to camp) so i haven't written much, but i'm gonna try to change that now that i have loyal fans :)  
> as always, comments and kudos are the best and i'm always trying to improve so if you have any constructive criticism, forreal, share it please!!  
> <3


End file.
